Trimess

Monday, May 9, 2011

You see, as teens, we are an undermined society. We are ignored often, and when people consider us, it's when they want to bitch about us or verbally crucify the whole generation as a whole. You often hear stories about how teens screwed up royally (I love how people bitch less about Charlie Sheen getting prostitutes, screwing his family up, doing drugs and drinking and being in total madness and denial about it than they do about so and so teen personality getting pregnant by accident.) We are categorized entirely as a generation who doesn't give a tenpenny fuck about tomorrow, their family or others; just getting drunk, high and pregnant. Guys are douchebags and girls are whores. It may not be that 'out there' blatant as that but media is pretty much subtly doing that with shows on The CW where 20 somethings play slutty teens partying. And if I see one more commercial where the teenager does nothing but smart off behind a phone, I'm going to break my TV with an axe. I'm sorry if this offends you, but this is me being perfectly frank about it.

For liberals to examine the current fundamentalist phenomenon in America is accept some hard truths. For starters, we libs are even more embattled than most of us choose to believe. Any significant liberal and progressive support is limited to a few urban pockets on each coast and along the upper edge of the Midwestern tier states. Most of the rest of the nation, the much vaunted heartland, is the dominion of the conservative and charismatic Christian. Turf-wise, it's pretty much their country, which is to say it presently belongs to George W. Bush for some valid reasons. Remember: He did not have to steal the entire election, just a little piece of it in Florida. Evangelical born-again Christians of one stripe or another were then, and are now, 40% of the electorate, and they support Bush 3-1. And as long as their clergy and their worst instincts tell them to, they will keep on voting for him, or someone like him, regardless of what we view as his arrogant folly and sub-intelligence. Forget about changing their minds. These Christians do not read the same books we do, they do not get their information from anything remotely resembling reasonably balanced sources, and in fact, consider even CBS and NBC super-liberal networks of porn and the Devil's lies. Given how fundamentalists see the modern world, they may as well be living in Iraq or Syria, with whom they share approximately the same Bronze Age religious tenets. They believe in God, Rumsfeld's Holy War and their absolute duty as God's chosen nation to kick Muslim ass up one side and down the other. In other words, just because millions of Christians appear to be dangerously nuts does not mean they are marginal.

Let’s get this straight: skyrocketing gas prices are inspiring people to investigate their transportation options. More and more of them are taking transit. Is this really the time to take the axe to those transit systems’ budgets?When drivers switch to transit, they should be welcomed with on-time service and affordable fares that reinforce the wisdom of their decision. Instead, they’re finding that their bus routes are being cut, fares are going up, and they’re faced with longer waits for infrequent service.

“The MARTA bus driver stopped the bus and opened the door,” Jones said. “The victim fell to the ground and rolled in front of the MARTA bus.”Jones said that McMillan then “drove around the victim and left the scene.”

SEIU 503 members from across the state will join union and community allies in Salem on Friday, May 20 (the next statewide furlough day) to stand up for fairness at the Better Way for Oregon Rally.I hope they get a good turn out. It's a regular work day for most TriMet ATU members. Hopefully our union will have some presence at the rally.

The nation’s official unemployment rate increased to nine percent in April, although the private sector added 268,000 jobs in the month. Some 13.7 million people were counted as unemployed. Meanwhile, several states are taking steps to dismantle the unemployment insurance system. In Florida, Republican Gov. Rick Scott is soon expected to sign a bill to cut unemployment benefits immediately by 11.5 percent. Unemployed workers would lose all benefits after no more than 23 weeks, instead of 26. The bill also cuts the business tax by 10 percent, which pays for unemployment benefits.--------------------The Associated Press is reporting CEOs at the nation’s largest companies received giant pay increases in 2010. The typical pay package for a head of a company in the S&P 500 was $9 million last year—24 percent higher than a year before. Philippe Dauman, the CEO of Viacom, took in $84.5 million last year, two-and-a-half times what he made the year before.